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" On an Electrical Corona resembling the Solar Corona,” 
bv Professor Osborne Reynolds, M.A. 
The object of this paper is to point out a very remarkable 
resemblance between a certain electrical phenomenon (which 
may have been produced before, although I am not aware 
that it has) and the solar corona. This resemblance seems 
to me to be of great importance, for the striking features of 
these two coronas are not possessed by any other halos, 
coronas, or glories with which bright objects are seen to be 
surrounded. 
Until the eclipse of 1871 there was considerable doubt 
how far the accounts given by observers of the corona could 
be relied upon ; but Mr. Brothers’ photograph has left no 
doubt on the subject. In this photograph we have a lasting 
picture of what hitherto has only been seen by a few 
favoured philosophers, and by them only during a few 
moments of excitement. 
This picture shows the beautiful radial structure of the 
corona, the dark rifts which intersect it, and also shows the 
disc of the moon, clear and free from light. I have not yet 
seen any of the photographs of the last eclipse, but I hear 
there are several, and that they show the radial structure 
and rifts even more distinctly than this one does, but 
whether they do or not one photograph is positive evidence ; 
the absence of more simply means nothing. 
The features to which I refer as those which distinguish 
the solar corona are — 
1. Its rifts and general radiating appearance. 
2. The crossing and bending of rays. 
8. Its self luminosity shown by the spectroscopic observa- 
tions of Professor Young. 
' 
